Commentary and Tracking of a Portfolio of Stocks using approach from "The Little Book that Beats the Market" by Joel Greenblatt aka Magic Formula Investing

Thursday, August 21, 2014

What Would You Do If Your Mother Asked You?

What Would You Do?

Quick, without using Google, who can tell me where my title came from? I was watching CNBC this morning and the former head of Wells Fargo was on the air discussing the $16 billion Bank of America settlement with the doj regarding alleged mortgage security fraud. He used very strong words and called the govt actions "extortion" and said they were entirely politically motivated. He also said that the government should be focusing on people who did wrong things, not corporations.

His point with Bank of America is that it was actually Countrywide and Merrill Lynch that were the real wrong doers and that Bank of America did the entire country a favor by buying up that mess.

What do my 33 readers think?

Options

I did get the ability to trade options in my fidelity account today. This is the brokerage account with the large majority of my holdings. I kind of glanced through my stocks and I did not see any holdings that I have any desire to sell covered calls on. Most of my holdings are intended to be a year or longer, and I have no desire to be called out and give up the upside. I did buy some call options on GNW that expire 1 1/2 years from now in January of 2016 (strike price $17 for $1.24). This will likely be the way I will tend to use options, on stocks that I have extremely high conviction on and with a relatively long expiration date and where the price has really been beaten down. So my real plan, except for perhaps trading covered calls around a stock like TSL, is to not use options much unless I see what I view to be a very very good opportunity.

Israel Loves Iran

As I think I have mentioned several times on my blog, I have been taking a course (on Coursera) on Social Psychology. I would encourage everyone reading this blog to check out Coursera, it has been a bit of a time commitment but has also broadened my view of the world and people. Well worth my time.

I just watched a powerful lecture called Israel Loves Iran. It discusses the potential power of social media. Most of us feel helpless with the larger issues of the world, but it is much more possible to start grass root movements with social media than ever before. Look at the ALS ice bucket challenge. Stunning, the power of social media.

Here is the lecture (in my mind a worthwhile use of fifteen minutes of your day)